Tag Archives: mytilini

Greece, Journey back to the borders, Mytilini, Open Letter, Part I

w2eu / youth without borders: Letter to the people in Mytilene

On a journey back to the border, we track back our traces to Europe.
Letter to the people in Mytilene

Dear people in Mitilini and on Lesvos island,

We came via Lesvos and/ or Greece to Europe, most of us some years ago and we are living now in different cities in Germany and Sweden. We finally got a right to stay and arrived. And we want to start a journey back to the border to track back our own traces to Europe.

A lot of us have made our first steps on European soil on your island. And many of us have been in Pagani, this very bad place on your island that is now history – after a long and hard struggle from inside and outside. We have made a lot of bitter experiences in Greece – but we have also met you and others who had been in solidarity with our struggle.

Also today refugees arrive on Lesvos, among them unaccompanied minor refugees, like us. They are like we have been, without help and support. As we said already we have made a lot of bitter experiences: we have survived the dangerous trip on the small boats, we have seen prisons and violence by the police. We have experienced homelessness and push-backs and racist attacks also on our further journey and with the fingerprints the border followed us until our countries of destination.

But we have also seen you and many others who helped us, sometimes with seemingly very small things like giving us a pair of shoes or food or just a friendly welcome. Many of us came to the island in a time when a lot of things were different than usual: during Noborder 2009 we stayed in the circus tent in the harbour of Mitlini directly after our arrival. In the very first moment we found friends from all over Europe. Others have spent some time in Agiassos, among us also known as the “Villa Azadi”, the villa of freedom. We come to meet you again and to thank all those on the island, who set their welcoming against the cruel borderregime. You gave us the hope that was necessary to reach our right to stay. For many of us this has been a starting point of a common struggle for the vision of another, a welcoming Europe, that maybe exists in the future.

We travel together with other young friends organised in a group called “Youth without borders”, some of them came years before us and they had another but also hard struggle against the deportations and for their final right to stay. We found out that our struggle is one. We make this journey to remind our selves on the struggles in our backpack – and we want to go a step further and raise our voice against the inhuman way how the European authorities treat refugees, directly here at the starting point of our journeys through Europe.

We want to use the journey for a coming together, between us who have been in transit on Lesvos and went further, with those who right now make their first steps – and with all those who are standing on our side because they believe in solidarity and not in borders.

After our arrival we see clearly another border, the invisible one and we think it is a similar border you are facing, while struggling to survive in Greece suffering from unpaid work, unemployment and without health care. Let us tell it in simple words: we have not been free when we had to run undocumented from Greece to Italy or Serbia and Hungary and further on to northern Europe. It was a hard and dangerous trip, but we have been on the move. But afterwards we discovered that there is another, we call it the “inner border”. Nowadays we struggle with the clock in the morning that reminds us for the date in the migration office, for the pressure to find a low paid job. If we want to meet friends we have to check our calendars. Everyday they remind us our place: in the low wage segment as cleaners or on the construction sites. You can imagine that we will not accept this border as well.

We will come in October 2013 to Mitilini, the main time will be 10th-14th of October, but some will come before and some will stay longer. We want to invite you to search together for the traces of our common struggle against the borders – the outer and the inner ones. We want to exchange experiences. We want to tell you our stories of resistance and to listen to yours. We want to mourn all those who had been senselessly dying in the sea and cannot be with us. We want to protest and struggle against the inhuman European borderregime. We see it as another step for organising networks across borders and discuss about future strategies and to where this journey might bring us.

We have arrived. There are certain things nobody can take away from us any more: the ability to move and to build connections and friendships that go beyond the border. We come to Lesvos because we want to share this with you.

We want to come together to fight the inner and the outer borders that are made to separate us. For us and for everybody. For another Europe that says “Welcome”.

We will send you some more ideas for a program for the days in October soon – and we would be happy if you have some proposals. Let’s start building up a communication. We are looking forward to see you!

Freedom of movement is everybody’s right!

You can contact us via: contact@w2eu.info

Greece, Mytilini

New “Pagani” to be opened soon in Moria, Mytilene (Lesvos island)

The official opening date was 20.09.13. Until today many people believe the new “camp” – officially announced to consist of one “first reception centre” and one “pre-removal centre” – will be the better alternative to detaining new arriving refugees and migrants in the open space of the port or in the overcrowded police stations of the island. But, is it really better? And what exactly has been constructed in Moria?

Moria: First reception or prison?
Moria: First reception or prison?

A look into the past:

– 2009 the local detention centre Pagani was strongly criticised. It was called “Dantes Inferno”. It closed following a wave of protests from the detained and from no border activists who were outside.

Pagani 2009
Pagani 2009

– 2013 the Greek government announces to build at least 10 mass detention centres with an overall capacity of 10.000. Shortly before the elections Amigdaleza opens as the first in a series of openings that occurred during the summer of the same year. It is used as the showcase of the new government presenting a new modern type of prison for the undocumented. Even though the first look showed “better detention conditions” it soon became clear that this would be the Greek Guantanamo. What started as a massive police operation called “Xenios Diaz” in August 4th, 2012 was the beginning of thousands arrests that followed. First it “only” affected the undocumented, later also sex workers, drug addicts, homeless and tax evaders. In the following another four detention centres open in Corinth, Xanthi, Komotini and Drama, Parenesti. The total capacity of the five new prisons: 5.000. And more is to come.
Amigdaleza
Amigdaleza

Currently the law allows for up to 12 months of detention of undocumented migrants and refugees (Syrians are the only exemption). The two “camps” to be opened soon in Moria will complete the picture of a broader Greek Guantanamo for migrants. Be they called “centres of hospitality”, “first reception centres” or “pre-removal centres”, the reality is the same. They are all prisons.

The only alternative is: No prisons but welcome centres!

No prisons but welcome centres!
No prisons but welcome centres!

With PIKPA, Mytilenes’ civil society has created a strong alternative which has proven to work under principles of solidarity, respect and self-organisation. Despite the fact the government has chosen to proceed with its plans.
PIKPA - welcome centre, run by the local solidarity group "village of all together"
PIKPA – welcome centre, run by the local solidarity group “village of all together”

Greece, Media, Mytilini, Press Realease

w2eu press release: Mytilene / Greece: European Border Agency FRONTEX invades place of solidarity

Mytilene / Greece: European Border Agency FRONTEX invades place of
solidarity

The people of the Greek island Lesvos (Mytilene) are famous for their
solidarity to the refugees arriving on the island. In December 2012 the
solidarity organized by the network “Village of Alltogether” was in the
focus of international media as a seldom example of good practice
showing that human rights in reality are a matter of the people and not
of politicians and their empty words.

Now, in September 2013, again the local people are offering with the
help of the islands’ authorities a shelter in PIKPA (a place for youth
summer camps) to 70 refugees mainly coming from Syria, Afghanistan and
Somalia. The people of the solidarity movement take once more the
responsibility to cover all the daily needs like food, clothes e.g.
Local people individually pass by practicing the famous Greek
hospitality and bring whatever useful they can offer: some apples, loafs
of bread, soap or just a welcoming smile.

On one of our solidarity visits we made to support the local structures
in their everyday effort, we – some members of the network Welcome to
Europe (http://lesvos.w2eu.net) – got aware of the fact that the
European Border Agency FRONTEX, has prepared themselves to occupy two
rooms in the main building with the aim to open an office for their so
called “screening”. This procedure most of the times results in the
wrong registration of refugees’ nationalities and/or age. With this
involvement they have the power to categorize you in “readmittable”,
“deportable” or a potential refugee and thus determine the immediate
destiny of all new arriving sans papiers. It depends on what they write
if a refugee will be send back to Turkey, if he/she will be detained or
not and even if he/she will be treated as a an adult or as a child.
FRONTEXs screening is part of their “risk research” to improve “border
security” in an area known for the inhuman treatment of refugees trying
to cross the external borders of the EU. Meanwhile FRONTEX is playing a
key role being responsible for the implementation of structures, through
know-how, staff and equipment sealing the European borders also in
Greece. They are directly and indirectly involved in national and
international structures of human rights abuses against refugees who try
to enter Greece (i.e. witnessing push-backs) and who already managed to
enter Europe (i.e. witnessing the degrading detention conditions in
prisons such as the police stations of Lesvos and the new detention
center to be built on the island).

On the 6th of September 2013 two FRONTEX-officers from Italy and Sweden
expulsed a family with small children and a pregnant woman from the
rooms they were hosted in order to occupy and re-use these rooms as
their offices introducing themselves as European Border Police. It is
more than obvious that thereby they abused the solidarity the local
people are offering and the trust that has developed among the civilian
supporters and the refugees in order to fulfill their task: to
militarize Europes’ borders instead of building a common space of
solidarity.

Mytilene, 9th of September 2013

Network Welcome to Europe
Contact: w2eu@hotmail.com

Greece, Mytilini

More than 100 refugees detained inside the port currently

In the last few days some dozens of refugees arrived again on the island. In the last 24hours only it was 113. They arrived on three separate rubber boats at different spots of the coast.

About 100 refugees are currently detained in the port without any protection from the sun. Among them families and children and a small baby. An unkown number of refugees is detained in the overcrowded cells of the police stations all over the island. At least 10 women with their children from Syria are among them. Some refugees from Syria who had been arrested on Saturday – and that are not supposed to be detained according to a decision of the Ministry of Citizen Protection, have not been released yet.

Meanwhile temperatures have reached more than 35 degrees celsius. A baby had to be transferred to hospital due to dehydration today.

lesvosnews (in greek)